Wolfpack encouraged by bounce-back effort

The result the same, Mark Gottfried’s mood was vastly improved following Wednesday night’s loss at Wake Forest compared to last weekend’s debacle against Virginia.

That’s what a 30-point turnaround did for the North Carolina State coach.

“I liked our guys’ effort and I’ll take it every time,” Gottfried said after a 70-69 loss to the Demon Deacons. “It is disappointing we lost but at the same time I thought we competed unbelievably hard and just came up a little short.”

The Wolfpack showed enough signs of progress to flush out last weekend’s 76-45 loss to Virginia and at least head into today’s game at No. 23 Duke with positive thoughts.

“It’s a good sign. It’d be nice if we won, but as long as we’re trending upwards, that’s better than losing by 30,” senior Jordan Vandenburg said.

So chalk it up as another learning experience for the young Wolfpack.

“We got beat down pretty bad against Virginia. It would have been easy to lay down, but we chose to keep our head up and keep fighting,” guard Ralston Turner said. “It’s early in the conference and we still have a ways to go.

“It’s only a couple of us who have been in these situations before, and a lot of us haven’t. So they’re taking their scars, they’re learning and hopefully we can get it here soon.”

Most notable among the improvements was the production from T.J. Warren. The prolific-scoring sophomore forward put up 22 points Wednesday night — the 13th time he has crossed 20 points this season — after he had four points against Virginia.

Warren leads the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring with 22.2 points per game.

“I figured he wouldn’t (have four points again). He just had a real bad game against Virginia, but sometimes that happens,” Turner said. “You can’t have all great games, so for me, I’m pretty sure everyone else, we knew there was going to be a point where he was going to struggle and the rest of us were going to step up.”

Another of those moments arose Wednesday night when Warren fouled out with 2:47 left.

N.C. State rallied with Warren resigned to a spectator’s role, taking a one-point lead with 10 seconds left on a pair of free throws by Desmond Lee.

Warren and Vandenburg both sat out large chunks of the second half with foul trouble, but Vandenburg said there shouldn’t be much of a drop off without Warren on the floor.

“If Ralston or Dez are out there, they can score as well. (Guard) Cat (Barber) can score too,” Vandenburg said. “If I’m not in there, that removes a little bit of senior leadership but, it shouldn’t have come down to what it did.”

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